The Akashic Connection's first-level ability states that in addition to giving you Channel Skill at 1st level instead of 2nd,
Eachd ay when you recover your spell slots, you can tap into the Akashic Record, enabling you to choose one Profession skill and add that to your list of associated skills for the channel skill class feature.
Channel Skill, of course, simply adds a small insight bonus to skill rolls. It sounds like the intent here is that the Mystic can 'access' skills that they don't normally have via the Akashic record, but by RAW this isn't possible, because the Profession skill cannot be used untrained, so unless you are investing all/most of your skill points in random profession skills, you're unlikely to ever use the ability to switch Profession skills when you recover your spell slots.
Is this ability being described incorrectly, is it simply a bad/useless ability, or have I made a terrible mistake in my understanding of how these rules work?
Did I post this in the wrong section?
I think you read it correctly. It's not a great ability, but I can see it having its uses. One or two ranks in a few Profession skills lets you roll to Recall Knowledge about them. The bonus is small, but increases the chances that you remember something.
Right, but then why give the ability to change which profession if affects? It seems like unless you're able to roll Profession checks without being trained, the flexibility that's being offered is useless. It's a shame, because thematically Akashic is one of the more interesting Connections.
It's probably meant to combo with the Access Akashic Record ability they get at level 3. This gives you the ability to theoretically know something about whatever you need to know about for the day, as long as you predict what profession skill will have the knowledge you need about an upcoming challenge.
I realize this is a necropost, but I have the same question. I'm thinking of house-ruling it to allow you to make that profession check untrained, if only so that someone might want to play something other than star shaman, but I was curious if this would cause other problems. I don't think so, since it's profession, but I want to be sure.
I'm thinking the person who wrote this ability and the person who made Profession checks trained-only were not the same person, so the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing and the assumption was you could just make the Profession check untrained.